Billions of dollars worth of merchandise are stolen each year from retailers. This is often referred to as shrink. Shrink represents approximately 42 billion dollars in retail loss in the U.S. and is statistically rising. Accordingly, loss prevention is becoming an increasing (priority for companies. The top two sources of shrink are internal merchandise theft and individual customer merchandise theft. The top two shrink item categories are razor blades and skin care/cosmetic products. Shelf sweeping is a particular part of the shrink problem. Shelf sweeping occurs when individuals or groups remove all the shelf stock and exit the store, similar to a “smash and grab” shoplifting technique. Shelf sweeping relies on excessive quantities of product being available on the shelf. The fact that shrink is rising shows that the current solutions are not effective enough.
Accordingly, a need exists for an inventory control system that helps solve the problems discussed above.